The Modern Scholar: Way with Words: Writing Rhetoric and the Art of Persuasion

Esteemed professor Michael D. C. Drout brings his expertise in literary studies to the subject of rhetoric. From history-altering political speeches to friendly debates at cocktail parties, rhetoric holds the power to change opinions, spark new thoughts, and ultimately change the world.

Farnsworth’s Classical English Rhetoric

Masters of language can turn unassuming words into phrases that are beautiful, effective, and memorable. What are the secrets of this alchemy? Part of the answer lies in rhetorical figures: practical ways of applying great aesthetic principles to a simple sentence or paragraph. Farnsworth’s Classical English Rhetoric recovers this knowledge for our times. It amounts to a tutorial on eloquence conducted by Churchill and Lincoln, Dickens and Melville, Burke and Paine, and more than a hundred others.

Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, And Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion

Thank You for Arguing is your master class in the art of persuasion, taught by professors ranging from Bart Simpson to Winston Churchill. The time-tested secrets the book discloses include Cicero's three-step strategy for moving an audience to action as well as Honest Abe's shameless trick of lowering an audience's expectations by pretending to be unpolished. But it's also replete with contemporary techniques such as politicians' use of “code” language to appeal to specific groups and an eye-opening assortment of popular-culture dodges.

If you don't know how to communicate properly, you are going to have problems in both your intimate and your family relationships. You are going to be ineffective in work and business situations. It's going to be troublesome managing employees or getting what you want from your boss or your clients on a daily basis. Overall, effective communication is like an engine oil that makes your life run smoothly, getting you wherever you want to be.

The Elements of Eloquence: Secrets of the Perfect Turn of Phrase

In his inimitably entertaining and wonderfully witty style, he takes apart famous phrases and shows how you too can write like Shakespeare or quip like Oscar Wilde. Whether you’re aiming to achieve literary immortality or just hoping to deliver the perfect one-liner, The Elements of Eloquence proves that you don’t need to have anything important to say - you simply need to say it well.

Ethics in the Real World: 82 Brief Essays on Things That Matter

Peter Singer is often described as the world's most influential philosopher. He is also one of its most controversial. The author of important books such as Animal Liberation and Practical Ethics, he helped launch the animal rights and effective altruism movements and contributed to the development of bioethics. Now, in Ethics in the Real World, Singer shows that he is also a master at dissecting important current events in a few hundred words.

Improve Your Conversations teaches you how to use the ingenious framework from improv comedy and apply it directly to your everyday social interactions and conversations...and can't we learn something from the greatest improv comedians in the world, like Tina Fey and Will Ferrell? Improv comedy and memorable conversations have almost everything in common, from their premise to what makes them great to their end goals.

Rhetoric, Poetics and Logic

All effective debaters, whether they know it or not, employ Aristotle's 3 basic principles of effective argument that form the spine of Rhetoric. In Poetics, Aristotle draws a dramatic distinction between poetry and history. This collection also includes Aristotle's body of work that has come to be identified as Logic.

The Art of Psychological Warfare: How to Skillfully Influence People Undetected and How to Mentally Subdue Your Enemies in Stealth Mode

This book teaches you personal interaction on a psychological level. It runs from trivial tricks like getting people to like and respect you more, to tactical life skills like making a convincing argument or persuading somebody to do you a large favor. In case you're up for some heavier artillery, it also teaches you how to play manipulative tricks on people by exploiting arcane quirks in the human mind, to psychological combat maneuvers practiced by law enforcement and the military.

Covert Persuasion: Psychological Tactics and Tricks to Win the Game

When we make decisions we like to think we weigh the options carefully, look at all the possibilities, and make the best choice based on a rational examination of the facts. But in truth, much of our decision making happens on a subconscious level based on feelings we might not even be aware of. Understanding and managing those subconscious feelings is the key to the art of persuasion. By observing and predicting human behavior, we can learn to react and direct behavior in others.

Conversation Tactics, Book 3 focuses on the subtle and nuanced tactics that will allow you to command any social situation. I'll shine a light onto the secrets of those that can own a room, always have a witty reply, and are never caught without just the right thing to say. I want this book to arm you with definitive tactics, maneuvers, and replies to whatever comes your way in a conversation.

The Alpha Male's Guide to Mastering the Art of Body Language

Warning! What you are about to learn will change the way women look at you, how people treat you, and will skyrocket your confidence levels! It seems so simple. You want confidence. You want respect. You want to be an alpha male. So you read up on all the self-help pap on how to improve yourself. But, you still feel weak and depressed.... Unfortunately, a mere intellectual understanding of confidence, charisma, and the alpha male is not enough. You must first embody the presence of the alpha male. You must master the art of body language!

The Unfair Advantage: Sell with NLP!

Dr. Duane Lakin is a psychologist and business consultant. A graduate of the University of Minnesota, Duane has over thirty years of experience serving business leaders as an industrial psychologist. Prior to that, he was a clinical psychologist and school consultant.

Word Workout: Building a Muscular Vocabularly in 10 Easy Steps

Word Workout is a practical audiobook for building vocabulary - a graduated program featuring thousands of words that begins with those known by most college graduates and ascends to words known only by the most educated, intelligent, and well-read adults. This workout is a comprehensive program, chock-full of information about synonyms, antonyms, and word origins, and replete with advice on proper usage and pronunciation.

Pre-Suasion: Channeling Attention for Change

The author of the legendary best seller Influence, social psychologist Robert Cialdini, shines a light on effective persuasion and reveals that the secret doesn't lie in the message itself but in the key moment before that message is delivered.

Here is the story of Jerry Weintraub: the self-made, Brooklyn-born, Bronx-raised impresario, Hollywood producer, legendary deal maker, and friend of politicians and stars. No matter where nature has placed him - the club rooms of Brooklyn, the Mafia dives of New York's Lower East Side, the wilds of Alaska, or the hills of Hollywood - he has found a way to put on a show and sell tickets at the door.

The Art of X-Ray Reading: How the Secrets of 25 Great Works of Literature Will Improve Your Writing

Where do writers learn their best moves? They use a technique that Roy Peter Clark calls X-ray reading, a form of reading that lets you penetrate beyond the surface of a text to see how meaning is actually being made. In The Art of X-Ray Reading, Clark invites you to don your X-ray reading glasses and join him on a guided tour through some of the most exquisite and masterful literary works of all time, from The Great Gatsby to Lolita to The Bluest Eye and many more.

The Tall Lady with the Iceberg: The Power of Metaphor to Sell, Persuade & Explain Anything to Anyone

Tall Lady With the Iceberg shows salespeople, leaders, and executives how to master the power of metaphor to break through in a noisy world and sell, persuade, and explain anything to anyone. Filled with exercises, 275 examples, and 25 real world stories, this audiobook will help anyone drive home a point, open minds, simplify complexity, rally people to a cause, close business, create change, and wow a crowd.

Steal the Show: From Speeches to Job Interviews to Deal-Closing Pitches, How to Guarantee a Standing Ovation for All the Performances in Your Life

Every day there are moments when you must persuade, inform, and motivate others effectively. Each of those moments requires you, in some way, to play a role, to heighten the impact of your words, and to manage your emotions and nerves. Every interaction is a performance, whether you're speaking up in a meeting, pitching a client, or walking into a job interview.

Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

After a stint policing the rough streets of Kansas City, Missouri, Chris Voss joined the FBI, where his career as a hostage negotiator brought him face-to-face with a range of criminals, including bank robbers and terrorists. Reaching the pinnacle of his profession, he became the FBI's lead international kidnapping negotiator. Never Split the Difference takes you inside the world of high-stakes negotiations and into Voss' head.

The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism

What if charisma could be taught? For the first time, science and technology have taken charisma apart, figured it out and turned it into an applied science: In controlled laboratory experiments, researchers could raise or lower people's level of charisma as if they were turning a dial. What you'll find here is practical magic: unique knowledge, drawn from a variety of sciences, revealing what charisma really is and how it works. You'll get both the insights and the techniques you need to apply this knowledge. The world will become your lab, and every person you meet, a chance to experiment.

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes' still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only 3,000 years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion - and indeed our future.

Publisher's Summary

Joseph Romm, one of Rolling Stone magazine’s top "100 Agents of Change", has focused his talents on helping us all to increase our language intelligence and to better understand the art of persuasion.

Romm demonstrates that you don't have to be an expert to vastly improve your ability to communicate. He has pulled together the secrets of the greatest communicators in history to show how you can apply these tools to your writing, speaking, blogging - even your Tweeting. The book also looks at the language intelligence of President Obama and Governor Romney.

Nothing could be more relevant in 2012 as Americans prepare to make vital choices following the elections. Language Intelligence will not only prepare you to be a much more memorable and persuasive communicator, it will also help you to understand the tricks of the trade used and misused by candidates on the stump.

With a few easily digestible and memorable concepts, Language Intelligence also offers listeners an indispensable roadmap for today’s political and pop culture landscape.

"For anyone who seeks to understand why Lady Gaga’s music has become a global phenomena or how to avoid ‘Etch-A-Sketch’ moments, this book is for you," said Romm.

What the Critics Say

"This book changed my life, and it can change yours, too. Joe Romm understands the secrets of persuasion and messaging and he has distilled them into this must-read book." (Van Jones, president, Rebuild the Dream)

"Joe Romm is one of the best communicators we have. This book is the essential handbook for anyone who wants to be more effective or more persuasive." (Bill McKibben, founder, 350.org)

If you could sum up Language Intelligence in three words, what would they be?

Informative, useful, interesting.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Shakespeare, for creating so many favorite characters of his own.

What does Drew Birdseye bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

An intelligent voice, with emphasis in all the right places.

What insight do you think you’ll apply from Language Intelligence?

I will strive to tell the story of my non-profit as an extended metaphor, using simple words, and repeat the mission/vision often while I paint a bright picture of the future that donors will bring about.

Any additional comments?

This is a great book for anyone who needs to convince anyone of anything, which means, for all of us! I didn't realize the common threads that run through the works of Shakespeare, Lincoln, the King James version of the Bible and lyrics from some of my favorite modern songwriters, and, knowing what those threads are, how to apply them to my own work and my own life. Dr. Romm's incites will be incredibly helpful to anyone who needs to write headlines, tweets, and stories to compel people to action. I highly recommend this book to all who want to be noticed and heard, and all who want to understand how others may compel you to act or feel a certain way through the skilled use of rhetoric.

It's pretty clear that Romm has an axe to grind against the political right and especially against those who don't believe in climate change. It's his stock in trade, which he points out.

Looking beyond that, however, it's clear he's studied both the messages and the messengers to the point where he has weaponized the methods of rhetoric. The information comes at the reader hard and fast, but it's solid and instantly usable by anyone looking to improve their oratory capabilities.

The writer has done an incredible job of presenting an array of techniques used "behind the scenes" to channel our thoughts and actions into the direction that the "hidden" director has chosen. All the while, we think we are intelligently and thoughtfully making our 'own' decisions.

Had to stop listening. Couldn't take any more of the authors liberal propaganda on global warming and his other personal opinions about an array of issues other than what the book is supposed to be about.